Hi All,
While posted on Jon's site, here is a copy of the invite. I'd
encourage you to make hotel reservations now, especially if you want
rooms Monday night!
November 5, 2007
Dear Friends:
There are many items here, and we’ve borrowed liberally form Wake
Forest, so please read on…
You are officially invited to the University of Texas Open Debate
Tournament, prompting the question: “Two kinky too kinky to Kinky?”
We haven’t secured a famous guest speaker, so we will continue to
call this the “Kinky II,” too, to be held on the Austin campus of the
University of Texas, February 9-11, 2008, registration will be on
Friday evening, February 8th. We hope to get you out of the cold,
but we can’t promise that. We will be warmer than Chicago.
TOURNAMENT HOTEL
We are happy to be at what is affectionately known as the “Bat
Hotel”, the Radisson Hotel and Suites on Town Lake; a terrific
property adjacent to the River (we call our rivers lakes here, for
some reason) and the largest urban bat colony in the United States.
There is a TGI Fridays and Starbucks in the Lobby. We urge all of you
to stay here since the Sunday night banquet as well as Monday's
elimination rounds will be held at the Hotel, and travel to downtown
on Monday morning will be quite difficult.
Reservations can be made by contacting Jennifer Spradling at
512-473-1528 or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the name of
the school, contact name, and phone number by January 17, 2008. The
name of the block is UT-Debate Tournament. We anticipate filling up
quickly, so make your reservations now!!!
Radisson Hotel and Suites on Town Lake
111 East Cesar Chavez
Austin, TX 78701
The group rate is $99 a night for up to 4 in a room, including
complimentary internet in the sleeping rooms. Some suites will be
available at $139 a night. All rooms will be available for check-in
no earlier than 3PM and check out at 12PM. Luggage storage can be
arranged with the hotel, if you come in early.
GENERAL LOGISTICS
Tournament Debates:
Preliminary debates will be held in University buildings and
elimination debates will be at the Radisson hotel.
Transportation:
Austin is easily accessible by air via Austin-Bergstrom International
Airport (AUS). The airport is about 20 minutes from the tournament
hotel.
Transportation from the airport to the hotel can be obtained by
contacting Super Shuttle (www.supershuttle.com/htm/cities/aus.htm,
512-258-3826). Roundtrip fare is about $25 per person but you may be
able to get a discounted rate if you tell them that you are staying
at the Radisson. Yellow cab is your best bet for Taxi service:
512-452-9999.
We are also served by Amtrak, if you dare.
Evidence Shuttle:
A shuttle for evidence only will be provided from the hotels to the
tournament Saturday morning and from the tournament to the hotels
Sunday night. Please let us know by noon CDT February 4, 2008 if you
plan on using the evidence shuttle.
Parking:
On Campus: There will be free open slots if you come early enough.
Your best option is to use nearby parking garages that will charge $9
a day.
At Hotel: Is $15 a night self, $20 valet. $6 for a day pass.
Parking in downtown Austin after 5.30PM on Friday and until Monday at
6.30AM is free, if you can find a space.
ENTRY DEADLINES, LIMITATIONS, PROCEDURES, INTERNET
Entry Deadline: January 25, 2008.
Use www.debateresults.com to enter. There is no limit to how many
teams from one school can participate. We will be able to
accommodate up to 200 teams. Please complete your entry by noon CDT
January 25, 2008.
To finalize your entry do the following on debateresults.com by NOON
February 4, 2008:
(a) double check the teams entered
(b) make sure your judges are entered along with number of rounds (as
per
the invitation schools with more than two teams owe 5 rounds for each
subsequent team, and, "As a norm, all coaches are expected to make
themselves available for at least some judging.").
(c) Make sure your judges have a philosophy entered at debateresults.
(d) Enter the TOTAL NUMBER in your party (all debaters, judges and
observers, scouts, hangers on) by CLICKING THE "School Info" button
at the entry screen.
That's where you also indicate vegetarians and vegans numbers.
(e) Double check your school's contact info at debateresults.com
To update your schools info:
go to www.debateresults.com
log in with your school's password
go to main menu
under Account Management, click "Edit your account"
once there, you can edit and update the contact info and other basic
info about your school.
Click Update before exiting this screen.
Entry Fees:
Fees for the tournament will be $40 per team and $60 per person
attending the tournament. We promise that we will make absolutely no
money off of the tournament. Your fees cover a variety of meals,
including breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday, and a
tournament banquet on Sunday evening. It also contributes to the
evidence shuttle, the cost of appropriate team and speaker awards,
room and building clean-up as required by the University, a reception
for coaches and judges, extra round of judging, and supplies required
for tournament administration.
All fees will be calculated on February 4, 2008 at NOON CDT. Your
school will be responsible for all people listed as of that time.
Should you need to drop a participant, please do so no later than
Noon CDT on February 4, 2008. Drops are official ONLY if confirmed
at the official tournament web site, the same URL where you enter.
Should you need to drop one or more participants after the
aforementioned deadline, a drop fee of $60 per person will be assessed.
Judge Requirements:
Schools are required to provide four rounds of preliminary judging
for each of their first two teams entered, and five rounds for each
subsequent team. Each judge is required to be available to hear the
first two elimination rounds. Per community practice, each judge is
expected to be available one round beyond the elimination of the team
with whom they are associated. A limited number of hired judges are
available at $30 per round. Early notice of your need to hire a judge
is appreciated.
If you are hiring judging from outside of your school’s staff/alumni,
and the tournament cannot place your judges into the required number
of rounds, the tournament reserves the right to: (1) adjust the
judging obligations of your judges (adding rounds of commitment to
those of your judges who are easier to place), and/or (2) charge your
school $30.00 per round of unmet obligation.
As a norm, all coaches are expected to make themselves available for
at least some judging.
Each judge will be REQUIRED to declare ONE AND ONLY ONE WINNER and
ONE AND ONLY ONE LOSER in each debate to which they are assigned by
the tab room. Compliance with this rule requires each judge to
complete an official judge ballot as designated by the tab room.
Completion of the ballot requires the judge to clearly designate
affirmative or negative to signify a winning team. Judges will also
be required to confirm their choice by indicating the school with
which the designated winner is affiliated. The side (affirmative or
negative) and school affiliation must match the assignments made by
the tab room. Judges will also be required to assign speaker points
and speaker ranks to each participant in the debate. If the Wake
speaker point experiment goes well, we may decide to employ it .
Speaker ranks are accepted in whole numbers only from 1 to 4.
Judges are also required to render a decision in accordance with the
aforementioned criteria no more than 165 minutes beyond the
designated start time of any debate that they are assigned by the tab
room to adjudicate.
If you or one of your judges is unable or unwilling to fulfill these
requirements, please submit an alternative judge prior to the start
of the tournament. If, during the course of the tournament, any
judge representing your school refuses to comply with these
requirements, teams affiliated with your school will be removed from
the competition by the tab room. Judges are expected to disqualify
themselves from hearing any team or school with which they may have a
personal or professional conflict. Such conflicts include, but are
not limited to: former college or high school debate colleagues,
former students, students from schools with which you have been
associated in the last two to four years, and students from a school
you plan to associate with next year. We urge judges to maintain a
high standard of integrity on this question. Conflicts may be
entered in the “comments” section of the judge entry section at
www.debateresults.com. Conflicts can also be submitted to Sean
Tiffee at [EMAIL PROTECTED] The tab room reserves the right to
restrict a judge’s eligible team field based upon our understanding
of your past institutional affiliation.
Topic:
Students are required to debate the topic selected for the 2007-08
season by a vote of the Cross Examination Debate Association
membership. The precise wording of this year’s topic is Resolved:
that the United States Federal Government should increase its
constructive engagement with the government of one or more of:
Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and
it should include offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a
substantial increase in foreign assistance.
Tournament Procedures:
We will not break brackets or have side equalization. Hybrid teams
are permitted. Prior to the tournament, maverick entries are NOT
accepted. Once the tournament begins, maverick debaters may or may
not be permitted to continue. The tournament director will evaluate
maverick situations on a case-by-case basis. The tournament employs
the now traditional 9-3-6 format with ten minutes of preparation time
allocated to each team. The first four rounds are preset. Round
five is high-high; six through eight are high-low. We continue to
employ a mutual judge preference (MJP) placement system. Eight
preliminary rounds are scheduled, followed by an appropriate number
of elimination rounds, typically five. Texas teams may compete in
the tournament. If so, they are eligible to receive speaker awards
and to compete in elimination rounds. We will enter via the web page
and declare our participation publicly. Texas teams will be required
to complete a judge preference sheet; judge assignments for Texas
teams will be assigned by the computer and changed only by the
option of an external tab room manager. We subscribe to CEDA’s policy
against Sexual Harassment and Discrimination. There's no smoking in
any of the University buildings and Austin does have an indoor
smoking ban.
Caselist and Scouting:
Participating teams and schools are expected to contribute to http://
opencaselist.wikispaces.com/ and should provide their most recent
affirmative and negative information by the Tuesday before the
tournament at latest. Teams and schools should cooperate with Texas
students and staff assigned to gather the material.
Internet access:
To get internet access on campus, you will need to contact Sean
Tiffee [EMAIL PROTECTED] with name, address, and email account
for everyone for whom you wish to have internet access while on
campus. There will not be wireless in the elimination round rooms,
but there will be wireless in the hotel lobby.
We truly look forward to having you here.
If you have any further questions, please e-mail
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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